


Strider and Val

by mescoa



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Mild Language, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mescoa/pseuds/mescoa
Summary: The story of how Rowan Strider became best buds with Val. Wsg Lee sighing in the background.





	

Rowan Strider was hesitant to say it aloud, but privately he believed that things were starting to look up. He was sitting at his desk, heavy boots kicked up on the old, chipped wood, flipping through his journal and casually burning the pages he didn’t need anymore. On the other side of his office, Shelly, the halfling bartender, quietly scratched arithmetic in the thick accounting book, fingers smudged with ink and tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. He was tallying up the night’s earnings, and without needing to see the numbers patiently recorded on parchment, Strider knew they had made more money this month than they had since the bar opened. Part of it was the new girl--a tavern wench Lee rescued from some other shady establishment--and part of it was simply the city being settled enough for Strider to have all of the cards decked in his favor.

The second was the largest factor--Rockwallow was an ever-changing city. The council, which worked together to keep the place flourishing in sin, was made up of the leaders of each district. Despite the underground’s best attempts, no district had changed hands in well over four months, allowing Strider to collect the dirt he needed to keep the most powerful of the city out of his hair. The only person he hadn’t been able to find anything on was Essence, the leader of the Red Light District, but the tiefling rarely attempted to move beyond his borders.

Which was good; The Left Hook was situated on ground not claimed by any district. It was, essentially, neutral and safe, for the time being. That didn’t mean the Redwood Knives mercenaries wouldn’t push, or that Galina Shade’s cult wouldn’t start cropping up. They were just less likely to, with what Strider had in his little black books about them. The bar was safe from them, and Goldgrip, and the other top players. Except the fucking tiefling.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried. Lee refused to go undercover, of course. There was no way she was going to sneak into the Red Light district if there wasn’t a good reason for it, and she had her faith that Essence was content with his territory; after all, he had never pushed before. But not having information bothered Strider.

He had sent others in Lee’s place, but they either never came back or insisted that there was nothing to find. Strider was sure Essence was outplaying him, but he didn’t know how (other than promising what the district had to offer, but surely Strider wasn’t losing this many good people to whores). 

It was starting to look like he’d need some new blood. Rockwallow had plenty to offer, but not all of it was up to par. So, he decided, if Lee wouldn’t play the field for him, he’d send her out to find someone who would.

And what a night to find the perfect person.

Shelly was splitting up the staffs’ earnings into pouches when Lee knocked on the door. It was a special pattern they’d come up with as kids, when she’d announce her presence by tapping on the ceiling of Strider’s room in the old brothel, back in Two Rivers. 

“Only good news allowed in here,” Strider called to her. Sounded like a casual conversation they would have, but nothing was ever that casual between them.

“Only got good news,” she said in her dead tone. She had found someone, but she wasn’t happy about it. She opened the door slowly, letting him grip the knife strapped to the underside of his desk and Shelly prepare a poison dart just in case. She moved in with the strut of a woman with purpose, hood drawn and eyes dark.

She didn’t trust the person she found. Then again, Lee didn’t trust anyone.

On her heels followed a gentleman in a plain, linen shirt with a plunging neckline and tight black pants. The heels of the boots he wore clicked against the old wooden floorboards, his hands concealed in leather, the upper half of his face hidden behind the kind of mask a mummer would wear.

Strider understood now why Lee didn’t like this guy. He was bold and dramatic and oozed charm.

Shelly packed up the accounting books and scurried out the door while Lee took her place in the dark corner behind it, ready to knife the stranger in the back if he tried to pull anything. The man smirked and held out his gloved hand for Strider to shake.

“I heard you were looking for information. Luckily for you, I’ve got everything you could ever need.” The voice was practically purred, smoothed and calculated. The squeeze of his handshake flirtatious and promising. Strider wasn’t sure if he hated him or was interested.

“We’ll see,” Strider said, offering the man a seat while Strider propped his boots back up. “You got a name?”

The man crossed one leg elegantly over the other, clasped his hands on his knee. “Richard Ryder, at your service. You may call me Dick.”

Strider snorted. “Dick Ryder? Are you looking to work together or solicit me for a good time?”

A smirk that must have been practiced for hours in a mirror--slowly spreading, quirking at the corner, making his lips move just so. “Possibly both, but mostly the former.”

“Better make this offer good,” Strider said. “I’ve got lots of promising leads. What makes your information more valuable than anyone else’s?”

“Because everyone else’s information comes from a long line of hearsay. Rumors and gossip, most of it made up on the fly.”

“That’s how this business works,” Strider countered.

“Right. You gather up the rumors and the gossip and the stories, and you work to figure out what is real and what isn’t. Tedious. Boring. I don’t get my shit from sources, Mr. Strider. I make myself into the only source I need.”

Strider quirked a brow. This man was off his rocker. “You’re telling me that you gathered intel all on your own, without any help from runners?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. And really, that is the only way to get to, uh, you-know-who. The information I have doesn’t come from his guards, his people, or the good citizens living there. Everything I have to offer I’ve learned from being his right hand man for the last six months.”

Strider just about felt his eyes pop out of his head. “Right hand man? The shit? Everyone knows Essence ain’t got a right hand. He’s got himself and his whores. There’s no way you’ve been that close to him for six months without anyone knowing.”

Dick bit his lip, as if trying to keep himself from grinning too wide. “Actually, there is. Allow me to demonstrate.”

It took several heartbeats for Strider to even realize what was happening. The change was so gradual, so smooth, he thought the long nights of work were finally catching up to him and his vision was going. But no, it was real, Dick’s hair was curling, his nose changing shape, shoulders becoming more slender, hips more pronounced. Within minutes it wasn’t a man sitting in the chair across from Strider, it was a woman.  
Strider rubbed at his jawline. “Disguise Self?”

“Would maybe get me through the door, but not last me six months. Have you attempted an illusion that long? I hear it’s impossible.”

“It’s not Disguise Self,” Lee said, confirming Strider’s suspicious.

“How then?”

The woman waggled her fingers in the air, smirking with now red lips. “Changeling!”

“Never heard of that,” Strider said. He removed his boots from the desk, leaned forward to get a better look. She definitely was the real deal. The man before was also definitely the real deal--Strider had touched his hand.

“We’re a rare breed. Never even met another one, as far as I know,” the woman said. “Anyways, that’s how I’ve been getting my info. Essence has been using me to spy on others, I change my face often enough for people not to get suspicious that he’s working so closely with someone. Everything I have on Essence comes from the big guy himself.”

Strider whistled. “That’s gonna be some expensive shit.”

“Oh, I don’t want money,” the woman said, dismissing the idea with a flick of her hand. “See, I’m pulling a long con. Trying to get my cute little paws on something I shouldn’t. My best estimate is that it’s gonna take me about a year to do this thing. In that time, I’m gonna need you and your people to stay out of my business.”

“That is expensive,” Strider said, leaning back. 

The woman shrugged. “I could, likely, tiptoe around you, but that sounds annoying. I’d rather we work together. I propose that every time I need to interrupt one of your little operations, I give you a juicy bit of fruit to make up for it. Dealings, meetings, earnings, weak spots. You name it, I’ll get it, if I don’t have it already. Keep you fed while I do my thing.”

“What is the thing you’re attempting to, ah, lift?”

The woman crossed her arms, propping up her breasts, the plunging neckline leaving nothing left to the imagination. “Confidential. None of your business.”

“Knowledge is my business, but I get where you’re coming from.” Strider tapped his nails on the desk as he thought, staring at the person sitting across from him. This was incredibly risky, but very tempting. People rarely paid him not to work, but what he aimed to gain would probably be worth putting off a project. 

“Rowan, no,” Lee said from the corner. “I don’t like this.”

The woman sighed. “Look, if you don’t accept this deal, then I’m going to have to actively disrupt your projects, possibly sabotage them forever. This way, we both get what we want.”  
Strider tapped his chin, thinking about it for a moment longer, then stood and held out his hand. Dick rose to her feet as well, slid her palm against his.

“Looks like we have a deal, then,” he said, smiling at her. He watched as, still clasping her hand, the woman shifted back into the man that had entered his office. From a pouch on his belt, he withdrew several sheets of folded parchment.

“Here’s what I have to start. I’ll give you more when I need something from you. If you ever need to contact me, ask for Dick at the front desk of the Vibrant Petal.”

“Clever,” Strider said, fighting a smile.

The changeling grinned, wide and friendly. “My real name is Vivian Valentino, but since we’re buds now, you can call me Val.”

After his departure, Lee closed the door, locking the two of them in the room alone. “What the hell are you thinking? We should have talked about it before you accepted. I have a bad feeling.”

“Which is why I need you in my life forever,” Strider said, shuffling through the papers Val had left. “Also, whatever bad shit happens, I think we’ll be okay.”

Lee snorted. Strider handed her the papers, and as she flipped through them, she whistled low. “Shit, Rowan.”

“Yeah,” he said, hiding a grin behind his hand. “We finally got it. I believe things are starting to look up.”


End file.
